


Three Buttons Left Undone

by Mnemosign26



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Cole (Dragon Age) Being Cole, Cole looking after Varric, F/M, POV Cole (Dragon Age), POV First Person, POV Varric Tethras, Past Tense, Present Tense, Wicked Grace (Dragon Age)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:15:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27639403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mnemosign26/pseuds/Mnemosign26
Summary: “OK, Kid, try it again like we practiced.” Varric tells me over a hand of cards. His face smiles, but his eyes hold pain, wounded, worried, wistful.I try to stay here, with him. “Two pairs beats one pair, four-of-a-kind beats two pairs.” But I can’t. His hurt is too strong. I’m pulled with it, into the tangle, hoping I won’t tear it by tugging too hard.~~~Or, three times Cole sees into Varric's mind. Varric is fine with this. Mostly.
Relationships: Bianca Davri/Varric Tethras, Cassandra Pentaghast/Varric Tethras
Comments: 4
Kudos: 21





	Three Buttons Left Undone

**Author's Note:**

> Cole POV but he jumps into Varric's head sometimes, meaning it's Varric POV too I guess. Cole POV is present tense, Varric POV is past or present depending on if he feels it now or in the past. Prompts were party banter, which are included in the fic - the majority of dialogue between Cole and Varric is this party banter.

“OK, Kid, try it again like we practiced.” Varric tells me over a hand of cards. His face smiles, but his eyes hold pain, wounded, worried, wistful. 

I try to stay here, with him. “Two pairs beats one pair, four-of-a-kind beats two pairs.” But I can’t. His hurt is too strong. I’m pulled with it, into the tangle, hoping I won’t tear it by tugging too hard. 

_Rivaini kept her face blank, careful. No-one else was watching her - they’d given up on trying to read her years ago. But I watched as she slid a card out of her boot, adding it to her hand and discarding another._

_Broody let slip the tiniest quirk of his lips upward, before straightening his mouth with a cough. I skulled my pitcher. Let them think I was serious. Let them think I succeeded, that somehow I cut the cards right in front of them. Donnic eyed me warily. He wouldn’t put it past me; neither would Red, if she were there. I glanced at Blondie - but turned back to the table immediately, watching Rivaini playing her cards face-down with a smirk._

_“Trust me, I’ve got this one.” She leaned back in her chair, folding her arms._

_“I fold,” Donnic looked nervous._

_She nodded at him. “Good decision.”_

_Broody met her gaze, looking her up and down. She returned the appreciative stare. “Me too.”_

_“Ugh,” I sighed, looking down at my hand. The Knight of Dawn, the Knight of Sacrifice, the Song of Twilight, the Angel of Charity, and the Serpent of Sadness. Only one pair. Maybe she was bluffing, but I wasn’t prepared to risk it. “Fine. I’m out.”_

_“I don’t believe you, Isabela.” Blondie exuded confidence. “I’m calling.”_

_Rivaini flipped her cards as Blondie put down his. She had every right to be confident - she had four-of-a-kind. The Serpent of Decay, the Ace of Dragons, the Serpent of Avarice, the Serpent of Deceit, and the Knight of Roses._

_Blondie swore, a torrent of curses. It wasn’t impressive to me, but Rivaini barked a laugh and Donnic blushed. “Barkeep!” Rivaini yelled triumphantly. “Another round! On Anders.” Her smile glinted. Blondie looked down, not meeting my eyes. He always hated it when he lost, especially to me or Rivaini. The “injustice” of our cheating got to him, I thought. But if he didn’t condone cheating, he shouldn’t have played Wicked Grace._

_When he finally glanced up at me, his face was full of anger. “It’s just one round, Blondie,” I tell him consolingly, patting him on the back gently. He nodded, but the frustration in his gaze didn’t ease._

“She slips the Ace of Dragons into a thigh-high boot, calls to the barman for another round. Blondie stares at the table, angry, always angry.” I emerge from the weave, the tangle of threads, the hurt, and no way to heal it. 

“Focus, Kid,” Varric’s voice brings me back. _I am Cole. I am not Varric - not anymore,_ I remind myself. “You can’t beat four-of-a-kind with bad memories.”

“You miss them,” my eyes close a little, feeling his pain, the pressure, the pointlessness of being here. 

“Of course I miss them!” He exclaims, smiling through his senseless agony, anxiety, anguish. “But I need to be here, too.”

~~~

“How are you feeling, Kid?” Varric smiles at me, and he remembers another conversation in another place. 

I want to get lost in it; I want to understand him. I want to help. So I look, and I see, and I know what she didn’t. 

_“If you don’t get some Sunshine, you’ll wilt, Daisy.” I told her, concerned by her dark, tired eyes. She hadn’t left her house in days; going out with Hawke and me was the only time she went out now._

_She didn’t hear the capitalisation in my words. “I’m not a plant, Varric,” she said crossly, “I’m fine, really.”_

_I sighed. After everything with Marethari and that demon of hers, she needed to move on. But I could tell she couldn’t - or wouldn’t. Damn demons, everything always goes south when they’re involved. She felt guilty. She thought it was her fault, but even so, she couldn’t stop looking for a way to get that mirror thing to work. The Eluvian, I thought she called it._

_Daisy and her blood magic. I shook my head. I didn’t think any less of her for it - I only wondered that she did. How could I help her recover from her guilt when I knew nothing about it? That was why I wanted her to see Sunshine… but of course, she didn’t catch on._

_Sunshine would have told her what she needed to hear. I didn’t know what that was (if she needed to think blood magic was bad, and stop using it, or if she needed to think that what mattered was how it was employed), but I knew Sunshine could have helped when I couldn’t. She had more experience with this shit than I did._

“‘If you don’t get some Sunshine, you’ll wilt.’” I recall his words to her, the one with the twine trailing over the trellises of the city. “She says she’s not a plant, she’s fine, but falling, faltering, foolish. Blood on her hands, people and demons always end in trouble. Too many Daisies in this garden.” I stop, looking at his expression. He’s waiting, what for? Oh, yes. An answer. “I’m fine, Varric. I am me. You don’t need to worry…” Not like he worried for her, for all of them. “But thank you for caring.”

He appears shaken, shocked, sympathetic. “All right. Well, let me know if you ever… uh… yeah.”

~~~

Varric keeps talking about my hat. He told me that people stare at me because of it. But I like my hat. It makes me happy. 

Still, if other people are scared of me, of it, then I don’t want that. “Should I change my hat?” I ask him. 

He thinks, careful, cautious, but caring. “Nah. If they’re busy staring at your hat, they’re ignoring all your other flaws.”

_Oh,_ I realise. “A silk shirt with three buttons left undone.” I say wondrously. 

He’s worried, wondering, wandering, hoping he’s not wrong. He’s afraid. Why? 

_Yeah, the chest hair hides everything. I just don’t care about my family anymore. Bartrand? What a bastard. And the rest of my family aren’t my cup of tea, either._

_I know it doesn’t matter, that they already know, but I feel like I have it all wrong. I should care about Bartrand. I shouldn’t care about the others as much as I do. Hawke, Blondie, Rivaini, Daisy, Broody, Red, Sparkler, Tiny, Buttercup, Kid… Seeker._

_That’s the biggest thing I want to hide. Kid knows, I think, because he knows everything. I feel guilty. Maker, when have I ever felt guilty? But there’s a first time for everything, I guess - ask any writer. OK, maybe just me._

_I’m not good enough for Bianca. I never have been. She deserves better, because she could be a paragon. What am I? Some idiot author with an obsession with danger._

_But since I met Seeker… I don’t want to be good enough for Bianca. I’m moving on. I don’t want to admit it, by the Stone, I think this is the first time I’ve even let myself think it. But I… love Seeker now._

_Cassandra._

_But I can’t - I belong with Bianca. I decided that a long time ago. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t._

“Exactly! If you can’t be flawless - and no-one can - be flashy. Nobody will know the difference.” Varric grins at me. He’s practiced at hiding the guilt, the grief, and acts like it’s a game. 

“You don’t need to feel bad, Varric.” I tell him softly. “There’s nothing wrong with moving on. Not ‘I can’t.’ It should be ‘I can’.”

“Kid, I thought I knew what I was doing. And now one person changes everything. I can’t.”

“I know your facade now. But you don’t need it. Be who you are, not who you think you should be.”

He sighs softly, his thoughts in a twisted tangle, all starting with a dagger through a book. “Thanks, Kid.”


End file.
